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WTFriday: Babysitter Takes Baby For Ride in Truck Bed

Most of us parents have at least one tale of Babysitting Gone Bad, whether it involves a lazy teenager, a surprise whammy of a phone bill, or a cleaned-out pantry and fridge--but this story really takes the cake.

Most of us parents have at least one tale of Babysitting Gone Bad—whether it’s the teenager who invites her boyfriend over without permission after the kids have gone to bed, the sitter who stuffs the kids with junk food and plops them in front of the TV for hours on end, or the one who spends the entire time chatting obliviously on her cell phone while at the playground with the kids. Thankfully, few of us have had a babysitting experience this bad: A 23-year-old woman has been arrested and charged with child neglect after she rode in the bed of a pickup truck with her 8-month-old charge in a stroller next to her, reports the Orlando Sentinel. That’s right: she loaded the 8-month-old little boy into his stroller and then onto the bed of a pickup truck—no car seat involved.

On Wednesday of this week, police in Daytona Beach, FL received numerous 911 calls about the situation. When the truck pulled into a driveway, the police arrested the babysitter and charged the driver of the truck with careless driving. Thankfully, the baby was okay, despite the fact that the truck had been traveling along two of the busiest roadways and through two of the busiest intersections in Volusia County, which could have easily resulted in “serious injury or death of a child,” according to the arrest affidavit. The arresting officer called it a “highly dangerous situation,” that was “incredibly unsafe.” From the way the stroller gets jostled just going over the curb in the dashcam video, it's miraculous that this journey ended safely.

The Daily Mail reports that the sitter explained in court that she had been babysitting since she was a teen and didn’t realize police would consider this endangering a child. She was later released on her own recognizance but ordered to stay away from the child involved.